City and Colour Concert Review

Canadian grown singer-songwriter, Dallas Green, of City and Colour has officially closed out their North America 2013 tour with selling out back-to-back shows at The Fillmore in Detroit.

San Francisco-based band, Sleepy Sun opened for both nights and took Detroit back to the peace, love, and rock and roll days. Their set consisted of psychedelic-rock and a true feel for music as they played many long instrumentals. The music felt so personal, almost as if they were in their garage just having a jam session. The vocals from front man, Bret Constantino, were clear but almost lost within the house music and flashing lights. Fans were wooed by their sense of energy. It was electric and soothing at once. It was as if you were in an entirely different era.

The break between sets was an hour long, but this didn’t upset the crowd. They were too excited to see Dallas Green in action and they had every right to be. The sell-out show was well worth the wait.

The City and Colour set was jam packed with just under twenty songs total. The set list featured songs from the latest album, “The Hurry and the Harm”, but also several doses of tracks from previous albums like, “Little Hell” and “Bring Me Your Love”. It’s no wonder C&C has such a strong fan base; Green is a true artist. The clarity of his voice is unreal and is literally music to your ears.

The band opened with two songs from the newest album, “The Hurry and the Harm”, and “The Lonely Life”. Following that, they played a few throwbacks from 2008 and previous years before Green played a solo acoustic set for the Fillmore.

He opened his acoustic set with the 2005 hit “Day Old Hate” from the album titled “The Death of Me”. The sold out crowd was calm and loving the acoustics immediately. His solo set continued with “Two Coins”, from the newest album, “Northern Wind”, from 2011’s “Little Hell” album, and finished up with 2005’s hit “Hello, I’m in Delaware”. The full band came back to the stage to join Green in performing another set. They played “Little Hell”, “Sleeping Sickness”, and this album’s most popular hit, “Thirst”.

Green’s stage banter was an attention getter. He unexpectedly started giving a speech on respect and love. He went on saying that there is no room for judgments in this world and that if we open our eyes we’re all here for the same reason. He just said it more straight-forward and pretty explicitly. The building imploded with support to his words, as they had all night.

Dallas left the stage briefly before coming back out for two more songs before not only concluding the show but also the tour. He started the encore presentation with playing “The Girl” and adding a steel guitar to the mix to give the popular song more of a twang. The crowd sang every word to the popular song in unison. Then at one point during the song, Green pointed out in the center of the crowd and stop singing to ask a fan a question. The question was to a couple where a man got down on one knee (somehow in this ridiculous crowd) and proposed to his girlfriend. The C&C singer wanted to know if she had accepted, and without missing a beat he finished the song. He concluded with “Sometimes (I Wish)” which had the whole building singing the lyrics repeatedly, closing the show with a crowd pleasing goodbye.